Remember When
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Written for Lenny Week Day 2, "Vacations." Title taken from an Alan Jackson song that I feel fits the


**This is written for the Lenny Week Day 2 Prompt, "Vacations."**

Twenties.

There's a bed and breakfast, but they mostly make use of the bed. Breakfast only comes into play when Penny needs her morning coffee. When they check out, they are asked if everything was satisfactory. Penny casually mentions that she thinks the bed might have been broken when they got there.

* * *

Thirties.

Penny never ceases to amaze Leonard. She used to complain if she had to wake up before eleven a.m. Sheldon had been punched in the throat several times over her love of sleeping in. It's different now. Savannah is up before six every day, jumping on the bed, asking when they can go to Disney World. Leonard is thrown off by the time difference; it's 2:45 in Pasadena. But Penny's awake, out of bed, smiling at her daughter, promising they can get started soon, helping the little girl hit Leonard with pillows to get him out of bed.

* * *

Forties.

With three kids in school, family vacations have become extremely important to the Hofstadters, and with all three of them academically inclined, Penny and Leonard find themselves road tripping from Zion National Park to the Museum of Natural History in Chicago to the one in New York, stopping at Gettysburg on the way. Leonard appreciates the contributions of Isaac Behunin and Marshall Field and the Union Army, Penny makes bad puns high fives their son when he laughs while Leonard and his sisters roll their eyes.

* * *

Fifties.

After years of driving the kids around, Penny and Leonard take advantage of their time off by getting in the air, taking a plane to Massachusetts and Michigan to visit "the offspring" at their respective universities. They watch the tenth Star Wars movie on the flight east, and Penny ponders what reality show to make Leonard watch on the way back.

* * *

Sixties.

They're back in the car. They've decided that they enjoy being able to do their traveling at a slower pace, as neither of them are as lively as they used to be. They don't go far anymore; thankfully Savannah lives just two hours north of them and their other children are flexible enough to visit frequently. Driving allows certain freedoms that flying just doesn't. For one thing, they can stop at small comic book and shoe shops on the way. Penny no longer wears heels. Leonard realizes that comics from the first decade of the 21st century are now "the old stuff."

* * *

Seventies.

Penny and Leonard always cry when the grandkids leave. Fortunately, they have eight, which means there are frequent visits. Unfortunately, frequent visits also mean frequent goodbyes. But Leonard reminds Penny that if they don't leave, they can't come back, and that would rob the couple of their favorite moments, the moments when the little ones – some are teenagers, but they will always be the little ones – run toward them after time apart, arms out, shouting "_Grandma! Grandpa!"_

* * *

Eighties.

"Do you remember that one time, in Switzerland, when we tried the intermediate ski slope?" Penny asks. "We were arguing over how long you'd stay on your feet, and I was the one to face plant while you glided through that thing like you had done it a thousand times."

Leonard gives a little laugh, looking up at her from the bed. "And that time Savannah almost bailed out of the boat at Disney World because she thought we were going over a waterfall."

Penny stares down at him, a dubious look on her face. "What?" Leonard asked.

"There's no Matterhorn at Disney World, is there?"

"I don't think so," Leonard said. "Why?"

"No reason." She takes his hand and squeezes it. Their hands were so warped by arthritis they couldn't get their wedding rings off. It used to be hard for Penny to accept showing her age, but she found this particular symptom kind of sweet. She smiles at her husband again. He's in his third month in the nursing home and doesn't seem to mind. "Keep coming every day, though," he would say, "or I'll have to tattle on you to the kids."

"Do you want to hear the story of the time our son got accidentally locked in stockades?" She asks him, raising her eyebrows.

"You always tell me that story," Leonard says, "and I was the one that was there."

"Okay," she says, adjusting her weight in the chair. "Then you tell me."


End file.
